


Inner Child

by Ferrenbach



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Comfort, Family Fluff, Gen, Noodle will always be the baby of the family, Phase Four (Gorillaz)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferrenbach/pseuds/Ferrenbach
Summary: Noodle escapes from a terrible date, comes home to people to people who care, and manages to get around the persistent feeling that casual affection is Not For Adults.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Inner Child

Noodle kicked off her shoes and resisted the childish urge to stomp her feet in frustration.

What a terrible evening! Not only had her date been annoyingly arrogant and full of themself, but they had not even had the decency to be interesting about it! They might have salvaged at least part of the night with some juicy gossip. Not enough to warrant a second outing, of course, but at least she would have hung around – perhaps only for coffee, perhaps for more – instead of claiming a headache and bailing for the evening.

The only thing more unforgivable than an annoying date was a boring one.

No matter. She was fully grown now. A keen, intelligent young woman with a good head on her shoulders and a sensible outlook on life, in direct contrast to the three scatter-brained, self-absorbed, and direly paranoid men who’d raised her. Credit her early military training, her stalwart personality, or her meditation skills, she had weathered it all to become someone to whom patience and perspective were second nature. She could handle disappointment.

She stomped her feet a little anyway in a rapid, pattering dance and felt a bit better.

The thought of explaining her evening exasperated her and she moved furtively into the house, hoping to sneak past her bandmates before they could ask her any awkward questions. She nearly had a heart attack when she scurried into the front room to find 2-D sprawled on the sofa, but he had dozed off sitting up and was not likely to register her presence. Easy enough to slip by, then, if that was what she wanted.

And yet…

She was not prepared to talk about her date, but was not really ready to sit around alone. She had gone out for companionship after all, and, if the original plan had fizzled, that did not mean she did not still want someone else around. Awake, 2-D might have asked her questions she was not prepared to answer, but asleep he was just another warm presence near whom she could plunk herself down to watch television or scroll through her phone or…

She was a grown woman, now, not given to childish things. Not that she had been permitted childishness, even as child. Memories of training crowded out other good things, including her earliest years at Kong Studios. A certain maturity was needed to handle life in a band, especially on the road, but she had been given leeway to express herself and was cared for in ways that sometimes filled her with longing.

It had been common then, as it was now, for 2-D to take frequent naps. Anywhere. Anytime. Blame old injuries, opioid use, or late nights drinking, it was not uncommon to find him sprawled in a chair, on a sofa, and even occasionally in bed. An encouraging sight for a child urged to rest in the afternoons, partly in case of a late-night show, partly on general principle. It was not a childish thing if adults did it, after all, and naps were easier with someone there to share them.

As tall as he was… As small as she’d been… She could not have asked for a better pillow.

Noodle sighed and gave in, grabbing a cushion and tossing it onto 2-D’s lap before creeping onto the sofa and laying her head on it carefully so as not to disturb him.

It was awkward and strange, a difficult fit. She was too tall, somehow, and it was a fight to keep her skirt from riding up as she sought a comfortable position. After a discreet amount of wriggling, she relaxed and listened to 2-D’s deep and easy breathing, her head pillowed on his leg.

She was nearly in a state of semi-sleep herself when she felt fingers in her hair.

“Heya, pun’kin. How was your date?”

Noodle groaned, partly at the question, partly at being found out, and partly because her warm and cosy moment was so easily broken.

It seemed to be all the reply she needed as she heard 2-D chuckle above her and his fingers scratched gently behind her ear.

“That well?”

“Ugh. You have no idea,” Noodle told him, trying to roll over onto her back, both hands clutching her skirt.

2-D casually pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and tossed it over her, a comfort and a modesty screen in one.

“Thanks,” she said, finally worming her way into position so that she could look up at him as she spoke.

“I won’t ask, then, but I can listen if you want,” 2-D told her, brushing the hair back on her forehead.

How terrible, she thought. How utterly childish. But it felt so nice that she said nothing about it.

“There’s nothing to say,” she told him instead. “It was just boring. You know how it goes.”

2-D looked momentarily perplexed, and then shook his head.

“No,” he admitted. “I dun have boring dates. ‘Course, I dun always have real date-dates, you know.”

Noodle chuckled and supposed she did. 2-D tended more toward an evening’s engagement. Even when he saw the same person several times in a row, the romance was brief and physical. And yet, there had been a few…

“Even when I do have ‘em, they aren’t boring,” 2-D confirmed as though he could read her thoughts. “They were all smarter’n me, I think. That makes ‘em int’resting. I think maybe you’re just too smart. You need someone smart like you so they dun bore you.”

Or maybe someone not so smart, she thought. An unfair assessment, perhaps, and a positively freudian one. Freudian, but with a grain of truth.

“Smart people are know-it-alls,” she told him. “If they were too smart, then we’d be fighting each other for our attention.”

“Yeah, but you’d win, ‘cause you’re a Miss Bossy-britches,” 2-D grinned.

And then he booped her nose.

The action startled her so much that she stared cross-eyed at the end of it a moment before she burst out laughing.

“I guess I could always get what I wanted from you,” she said. “Mostly. Maybe not always from Murdoc or he might not have been so… Murdoc.”

“Murdoc too,” 2-D said. “Mostly. But yeah… Murdoc is very… Murdoc.”

As though summoned by the sound of his name, Murdoc wandered into the room with a glass of whiskey in one hand a half-empty bottle in the other. He plunked the latter down on a side table before tumbling into a chair and kicking his feet up on the ottoman, propping his hand with the glass on the armrest.

“Well, aren’t we cozy?” he said.

“Yes,” Noodle agreed, although a little part of her squirmed inside. She suddenly felt silly and excessively childish, lying there and being pet, but it was senseless to argue. Any sign of contradiction was apt to apt to rouse Murdoc’s contrarian spirit, and she was not in the mood for a fight. “Jealous?”

Murdoc snorted and took a sip of the whiskey.

“My arse,” he said. “How was the date?”

Noodle heaved a sigh and he chuckled.

“That good, eh?”

“I’m not talking about it,” Noodle informed him, turning away to look straight up at 2-D, who winked at her and lifted his arm from the back of the sofa.

She knew before she realized it, possibly before 2-D realized it himself. Knew, but did not know that she knew until she drew up her legs and crossed her arms with a gleefully terrified squeal, that he meant to tickle her.

2-D froze then, his hand above her, his face registering nothing but shock and mild horror as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Of course he couldn’t just tickle her! Of course not! She was nearing thirty, not a child engaged in roughhousing. He was over forty and knew better. Even in a spirit of fun, he couldn’t just tickle her without some agreement that it was part of the game. And they did not play those games because they were adults.

Terrible. Terrible.

Noodled laughed nervously, and then relaxed, slowly stretching back out as she reached up to take his hovering hand and clasp it in both of her own, bring them to rest on the safe plane of her abdomen. She murmured softly in Japanese – “It’s all right! It’s all right!” – and he might have understood her words, knowing her as long as he had, but he might have only understood her tone, his look of horror fading to a tired smile.

Tired… Tired… Everything was tiring. But it really was all right, at least to her. It was a childish move and a childish reaction and that was all right. It was all right to be childish with 2-D. He was… safe. Childishness did not affect how he saw her, thought of her, respected her and her work. She thought, perhaps, that he would even see it as strength rather than weakness. A link to creativity.

It was Murdoc who worried her. Worried and did not worry because who really cared what he thought about her reactions? Did not worry and did because he could be driven and demanding and often saw fun as extraneous to production, a means to failure.

A reason for disappointment.

Noodle resolutely did not look in Murdoc’s direction, listening only to the semi-regular clink of ice cubes as he sipped his whiskey. She was so focused on the sound that the music crept up on her and it was a while before she realized that 2-D was humming to himself. Half-humming, half-singing, she realized as she tuned in, eventually recognizing The Cure.

“…Thursday, I dun care ‘bout you. It’s Friday, I’m in love,” 2-D crooned softly, brushing her hair back with his free hand.

Silly, soft, and punkish pop. Music almost as old as she, but lovely when 2-D sang it, and oddly appropriate. She closed her eyes to listen, toying with his fingers that she yet clasped in her hands. Toying with them until she no longer did, her breathing soft and regular, not noticing when he eased them from her grasp.

“Bit spoiled, isn’t she?” Murdoc remarked as 2-D straightened Noodle’s blanket and pulled it up to cover her arms.

“Wassa matter, Muds?” 2-D grinned. “You want me to sing you to sleep too?”

“Don’t be daft,” Murdoc snorted. “How childish do you think I am?”

2-D snorted in return and sang on anyway. Murdoc poured himself another measure and sipped his whiskey in peace, pretending not to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> "Friday I’m in Love" is by The Cure. From the album _Wish_, May 1992, Fiction Records.


End file.
